“About twenty years ago a party of European surveyors employed by the Manila and Dagupán Railroad, in surveying this section of my country, were stationed at Malolos, my former home. In the course of human events, one of the party――namely, Armand Lemaire――became enamoured with and courted my mother, with whom he was eventually joined in holy wedlock. Of this union I am the fruition. At the expiration of my father’s duties in the Philippines, he was ordered to India, where, falling a victim, he succumbed to the plague.” Reaching into the drawer of an escritoire, she drew forth the picture of a man, whose intelligent features clearly indicated the ancestry of this charming young woman. Continuing, she said: “My mother, on receiving notice of my father’s death, took up her residence on this plantation, provided before his departure for India, and here she has lived ever since in pensive quietude, never fully recovering from the effects of her dire misfortune.” [Illustration: MACHINE GUN PLATOON OF THE 29TH INFANTRY IN THE SNOW CAPPED WASATCH RANGE, UTAH.] There was something unusually pathetic in this sincere girl’s story, and my conjecture, as I gazed on her mother’s bridal-veil, had found a sequel. With the assurance of my utmost sympathy, the conversation switched on to other topics. Glancing at my watch the hands indicated midnight, and I had told the patrol to be on hand with my pony at eleven o’clock. Glancing over the balustrade, Carmen inquired, “Donde cabalyo?” The patrol had arrived with the pony as if by magic. As I bade Carmen Lemaire a fond adieu, she again admonished me as to the possible violence of her jealous suitors. “Keep on the alert and take no chances,” she said. After tipping the patrol a two-peso note, I mounted my pony, and wafting a “buenos-notches” galloped off in the pale moonlight, sincerely wishing some dusky rival would take a shot at me, that I might demonstrate “the survival of the fittest.” My ride through the jungle in lonely contemplation was uneventful until the barrio of Bocaue was reached. Here I found a barrier in the shape of a river. I had failed to take into consideration that the ferry ceased running at midnight. The ferry, a flat-bottomed scow capable of carrying about fifty people, was moored on the opposite side of the river and no one there to man it. I had my choice of two things,――namely, swim the current or wait until dawn. Having placed a photograph along with some other valuables in the band of my sombrero, I reined my pony to the brink, and was about to plunge when I saw looming on the opposite shore the figure of a police patrol.